S-boat 55

And so the tiny stuff begins..... Training guns first, all four done and read to paint, these were pretty straight forward really, the one issue I found was that Model master recommend a 0.3mm drill bit to open out the resin for the barrel - that's far too large as its wider than the barrels themselves. I ended up carefully using the point of a new no1 knife blade, Double mount, much like the training guns, but the resin is so thin you cant really open the hole much so I took off the nib on the end of the barrel, First of the 3 batches of the quads, oddly these were the hardest even though they just sit on a ready grooved bit of resin, Model master give you two spare barrels on these (and one of the other sets), I ended up loosing three, just pinged off into oblivion, luckily I have the other two sets and only need 11 not 12 guns so there is extra spare, I'm going to fit the others using low tack tape and tweezers to hopefully stop the rate of loss. Otherwise knowing my luck I'll end up with 1 mount with three barrels, (the one of the far left wants a bit of touch up/might be the one in reserve), There's phot etch parts to add to both types of AA guns which want a pre-paint before fitting - at this point I ran into an issue, opened up the paint and its gone 'off' lumps and with a film that no amount of mixing/thinning is having any affect on, its like lumpy custard for some reason. I ordered a new tin off evil bay only to find its an early batch with a painted lid and so the colour is just plain different, given I need it for touch up and the aa guns I will have to head into to town to try and get one from Antics - hopefully they have a later batch with the stickered top ..... hopefully, Thanks Sam

Got to get me an airbrush

Out of curiousity how long did the anti fouling take to do,

As they'd say in Wales...Tidy

I'm told that's a woman's perogative............ Thansk re the airbrush, I'm trying with whether to keep a kit on pre order or use the funds towards an airbrush to hopefully speed builds up a bit,

Looking really good so far Guy, I'll not be offended....I mean I'll never offer advice again but...... The changing of the turret tops is a blighter in one way, still at least I can nick the outcome for my project when I get to it, Out of curiosity what airbrush do you use?

Hi David, Thansm for the reply, that's a goodnidea I'll have a look, Re the planes and boats, not found boats as of yet but I think the etch sets I have should bring them up nicely, plane wise best I've found is trumpeters arado 196's which at least have recessed panel lines compared to revells, she carried four and I was going to be self indulgent and have all three hanger doors open either half or full

See where you're coming from, maybe try it out on a bit of scrap first and see thinned right down it wouldn't notice as being brushed, aside that it'd be making a mask template and doing them first as you say,

Hi collective wisdom of the britmodelling community, can I impose on you all a second, In the stash I have revells bismarck kit with eduard and lion roar detail sets to boot, before making a start I want to make sure I have everything/anything else I'm likely to want. It'll be my first venture in going all out on a kit so I've been looking for a metal mast upgrade set, there appears generic on on eBay for a reasonable price I guess from China, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-350-Scale-Bismarck-Mast-Upgrade-Set-CYG012-/153209067147?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0 Anyone used something like this/have a view or any other recommendations I'd be grateful to hear opinions, Thanks Sam

Re the false wave, my advice would be by brush instead, last and very carefully, if you've pre sealed the main base coat first then cleaning off any slippage while you go shouldn't be an issue, I know we often go for perfect edges in the ship world but I think as scale increases you can start to justify a very small amount of 'wobble' if you are going for realism over museum finish, I was looking at pics of my current build the other day and her water line at one point was decidedly wonky near the stern on one side, That said I'm biased as I brush paint so.......

That is looking really good, a lot of PE as you say but it's worth it

Great dimensional coordination from Hobbyboss/Trumpeter here; Little more i could do that just ease the top part of the railing out, frustrating but there we are,

That sounds very involved but would work, food for thought, thanks for rhe suggestion

Well then, not a lot of noticeable progress, spent 2 and a half hours last night sticking tiny bits on that really don't show much but its one more bit done, Also found an issue in the instructions missing part numbers, fairly simple but for clarity here's the amended version.... Some of the bits are very very delicate, I'm not sure how but I manged to knock the bottom plate off of both these parts, managed to stick it all together first but word to the wise, be gentle with them, only down side is that as a result and my mistake it means that those bits that should be upright are now leaning in a bit but its not the end of the world and were I to try and correct it I think I would do more damage that good. I thought she looked good in the evening sun the other day; As you can tell I've not finished the boats yet, I think with my next one I'm going to have to do those first to get them out of the way, I just find them dull to do, This area is nearing completion, there's two small parts to add to the catapult and the crane and plane, crane will go on very much last thing. Aside that is just the main rails for the rear now. I've been chopping up some for HMS Repulse to repurpose (I'll get a proper set for her later), but they have this odd feature that I'm not sure how to represent. You can see in these two shots of her and Strasbourg that there is a wide almost ledge that runs on top of the railing. Thoughts on if it would be wood or metal? And given its flat, any ideas how I could fashion something to use to represent it? Thanks Sam

Really like those tubs, looking good

Impressive work imo

Might be worth trying trying keep the hanger separate incase it causes stability issues, though I guess at 1/200 there's likely enough ballast to stop that being an issue, id be interested to see how you go about it - will you be doing a build log?

I've not done one myself but I've contemplated it and how it could be done, is it a one piece deck? I'd wondered about using small magnets spaced out across the deck to join to the Hull, I saw a video of a build done that way and a small servo being used to pop the deck in one part to allow it to then be lifted off, I've had a look but can't find the video sorry,

Very nice weathering, great build imo

Looking really Good so far fella

Great job on drilling those out......I've got to do rhe same in 1/350...... Glad you got rhe paint sorted, Sovereignhobbies.co.uk and Jamie are great it must be said,

yeah as you said the other day they really dont think about how things are actually put together,

I know what you mean they quickly add up in cost, I went with them partially because my next serious build was supposed to be Graf Spee which will need after market AA guns and thought they'd be good practise, that said I'm unlikely to get her really started before Taiho arrives at the end of August. So one advantage of small children is late night hobby time - every cloud as they say, Stairs - these were a fiddle, largely because all of a sudden having been fairly happy all way through to go mainly by the box I got hung up on how these should be. So for those interested I'm about to nerd out about these. In essence what the instructions tell you to do is wrong - the steps likely shouldn't really be as they are shown certainly not with the aa guns as they are. The twin mount AA gun on the forward deck abreast turret B was fitted later than Strasbourg her sister ship. That places the kit towards the end of her life late 1942/1943. When she was launched and up until about 1941 she doesn't appear to have had any permanent stairs in place in this area, then in one photo she has them running as the kit suggests (maybe - its blurry and so they may run sideways) and the only other photos of her in 42/43 show the steps running adjacent the wall bulkhead between deck levels. (Strasbourg again seems to of had these much earlier). From a lot of searching the book I have and scrolling on tinternet I found that Dunkerque's stairs ran down towards the edge of the deck (odd) and strasbourgs ran mirrored so taking you towards the barbette base of turret B. So my solution was to repurpose the top third of the steps that are supposed to be for the side - (not sure what you call 'em) that i didn't plan to put in place anyway largely due to storage and their inevitably getting knocked off. To sum it up a couple of photo's will likely show better what I am rabbiting about; So above became below; The original lacked a cross bar to stop you just walking off the platform into the sea so I had to add that, Thanks Sam

It does seem an odd place to keep them, Thanks Guy,

There are odd little bits that sit on the 'corners' of the main turrets, not sure their purpose and the pe is simplistic as representations go, but they and the railings are on for each of the quad turrets. A couple of them don't look great when you get in close, it turns out they are handed but the instructions don't tell you that, the etch is ready with depressions to aid bending but you have to work out as you go whether you bend in towards that marking and or bend it away from it, I ended up having to reverse what i had done with some of them. One tried to be taken by the carpet monster but i found the little blighter and got him on in the end. They do make the turrets more interesting along with the rails, it does go to show how the resin turret option would really make it sing but I just cannot justify the cost. For those building one of these you'll notice the rafts under the barrels of B turret, they're wrong - should be three stacks of four (or more) not four stacks of three - there're aren't really enough in the kit decided on a shot to mark where I'm, still a good bit to do, always seems to be more each time I think about which bit to do next, More tomor.......at some point Thanks for looking in, Sam